Logical Reasoning

PT114 · S1 · Q14 Thirty years ago, the percentage

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Thirty years ago, the percentage of the British people who vacationed in foreign countries was very small compared with the large percentage of the British population who travel abroad for vacations now.

Conclusion (Therefore)

British people must have, on average, more money to spend on vacations now than they did 30 years ago.

Evidence

30 years ago, a much smaller percentage of Brits traveled abroad for vacations than do now.

Foreign travel is, and always has been, expensive from Britain.

Evaluate

It doesn't seem like this is testing a Missing Link, but we could say the author is assuming this move:

If we switched into our Objection mindset,

This argument assumes one possible Explanation for a Curious Fact. The author is wondering why a bigger % of Brits travel abroad for vacations nowadays and assumes the reason must be vacation money.

We want to consider Alternate Explanations (maybe they always had the money to take the trip, but they didn't have the time off from their jobs / they feared going abroad because foreigners were more hostile to Brits / they didn't have a convenient airport close to home / etc.), as well as how Plausible the author's explanation is.

Goal

Look for an answer linking "higher % taking expensive vacations abroad" to "higher average vacation budget".

Or look for an answer ruling out an Alternate Explanation for why there is now a larger % taking vacations abroad.

Or look for something that would be required for the Author's Explanation to be plausible.

14.

The argument requires assuming which one of the following?

  1. If foreign travel had been

    Too Strong: still would not

    Since this author is assuming that the causal difference-maker between 30 years ago and now is just having extra money to spend on vacations, she must be thinking that people "didn't have enough money" 30 years ago to take the vacations they would have otherwise wanted to take. If foreign travel had been less expensive 30 years ago, would more British people have been able to afford a vacation? Well, it depends on how much less expensive vacations were, naturally. This answer is too strong, because it's saying in all cases of travel being less expensive, all Brits still wouldn't have had enough money to travel.

    6% picked this

  2. If travel to Britain were

    Out of Scope: travel to Britain

    The behavior of non-Brits coming to Britain to take their vacation abroad is totally out of scope. The author is only look at Brits and trying to explain their behavior. Non-Brits could only be relevant if they were playing some causal role in keeping Brits from taking vacations abroad 30 years ago or facilitating those vacations nowadays.

    0% picked this

  3. If the percentage of British

    Out of Scope: domestic vacations

    We know this trigger is true: the % of Brits vacationing abroad was lower 30 years ago. So we can just ask ourselves if the author was definitely assuming the outcome idea. The author was not committing to any beliefs about domestic vacations, period, let alone a comparison in which British people from 30 years ago (whom this author thinks had LESS money to spend on vacations) spent MORE on domestic vacations.

    2% picked this

  4. Correct

    If more of the British

    Why this is right

    This answer is establishing something necessary for the author's causal explanation to be plausible. If the author's story is that "the reason more Brits travel abroad now is that they have more money to spend on vacations", then the author is implicitly saying, "the reason fewer Brits traveled abroad 30 years ago is that they had less money to spend on vacations". Thus, we would have to think that if they had more money for vacations abroad, more Brits from 30 years ago would have taken such vacations. If we negate this answer it becomes an objections: even if they had had more $ to vacation abroad, they still wouldn't have done so. That suggests that there must be an Alternate Explanation for why a lower % of Brits took vacations abroad. If it wasn't the money, then something other force dissuaded them. If more Brits nowadays are taking these vacations, we wouldn't assume it's because they have more money. We'd think it's because this other factor that was dissuading them has now changed.

    Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    73% picked this

  5. If British people are now

    Out of Scope: wealthier

    The argument is never saying that British people are wealthier now than they were 30 years ago, just that they have more money to spend on vacations. It's possible they have more vacation money because they're wealthier, but there are other possible ways that would come about, so the author doesn't need to assume they're wealthier just because she's thinking they have more vacation money. If we negate this it's saying, "It's possible for British people to be wealthier now but not have more money to spend on vacations now." Even though the second half of that sounds like it would hurt the conclusion, the first part comes out of nowhere. We would object to this argument by saying, "It's possible that a much larger percentage of British people vacation abroad nowadays, but they do not have more money to spend on vacations abroad than before."

    19% picked this

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